Free Palestine Now and Richmond Jews Against the Occupation (RJATO)’s Response to Recent act of anti-Jewish Vandalism

By: Ben Laurel
06/13/03

    Free Palestine Now! (Virginia Commonwealth University) in conjunction with Richmond Jews Against the Occupation (RJATO) wholeheartedly condemns the recent vandalism of the Virginia Holocaust Museum in Richmond, VA.  It seems as though this was nothing more then a vicious act of anti-Jewish terror perpetuated by mindless fascists.   We urge that the thugs that committed this heinous hate crime be brought to justice immediately.   The message that was being promoted by this vandalism that, “Jews are exploiting the Holocaust for commercial interest” is completely sick, and is nothing more than right-wing hate-mongering propaganda. Our organizations maintain that all periods of brutal oppression must be remembered and that we must never allow our children and grand children to forget history’s ugly period and succumb to the racist lies of fascists.  We encourage the Jewish community and the non-Jewish community to continue to take actions to preserve the memory of the six million Jews and the countless other millions who were murdered by Hitler and his gang of Nazi gangsters.

            In addition, Free Palestine Now (VCU) also calls attention to other recent acts of anti-Jewish attacks in Richmond, specifically the pasting of anti-Jewish flyers at the Republican Party offices in Richmond.  These flyers read, “No War For Israel”, perpetuating the anti-Semitic myth that Jews control the American economy and government, and that the American Jewish population is using their power to promote a war on Iraq to satisfy their greedy interest. Therefore the anti-Semites that pasted these flyers were promoting the centuries old bogus anti-Jewish stereotype that the Jews are greedy and controlling.  This stereotype in turn has been used to wrongly justify some of the most disgusting crimes against the Jewish people from the Russian Pogroms to Hitler’s death camps.  Our organization emphatically rejects this bigoted analysis of why the US government waged a war on Iraq, of why the US supports oppressive state of Israel, and American governmental policy in general. We as an organization seek to act in solidarity with the Palestinian people and their struggle for freedom and self-determination out of moral conviction not out of hatred towards Israel because of it ethnic character or towards the Jewish people.  Our opposition is towards the Israeli government, a government that violates the human rights of the Palestinian people on a daily basis through military occupation, house demolition, infringements on the free travel of human beings, indiscriminate killing of civilians, and settlement building.  Free Palestine Now! (VCU), and all of our partner groups in the Richmond area including Richmond Jews Against the Occupation (RJATO), Students for Divestment at VCU (SD-VCU), and Richmond SUSTAIN (Stop US Tax-funded Aid to Israel Now) totally reject the anti-Semitic theory that there is a Jewish conspiracy to control the US government in order to ensure that the USA bends to all the very wishes of Israel.  This so called (ZOG) theory Zionist Occupied Government is dangerously being used by the anti-Semitic fascists to cloak their sick hate-mongering agenda in language that sounds more susceptible to the average person.

Incidentally, the “No War for Israel” slogan that is printed on these anti-Semitic flyers is actually a front group called “No War for Israel” for the fascist European American and Unity Rights Organization led by David Duke the former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). It is only accurate to assume that the vandalism of the holocaust museum and the posting of these “flyers” are the work of the EURO group, and other KKK remnants within the city of Richmond. Theses acts of vandalism show that the white supremacists and fascists are still trying to organize in Richmond, and are very scary and are not being treated as seriously as they deserve.

In addition, Free Palestine Now (VCU) would also like to call attention to the outrageous absence of a necessary uproar towards other forms of racism that exist in the city of Richmond.  For example, the head editorialist Ross Mackenzie, for the major daily paper in our town wrote an article titled, “No Way Out, or . . . :
Will the Road Map Lead to Genuine Arab Compromise?” in which he openly bashes the Qur’an and openly calls for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.  In this article when pondering why there is so much anger in the Arab world towards Israel he states, “Maybe in those areas of the Arab world dominated by Islam, it's the Koran.”  Later in the article he goes on to say, “The vast Arab territories possess plenty of lands to set up housekeeping for the Palestinians - if the Arab regimes possessed the matching moxie (a moxie they demand of Israel) to relocate the Palestinians on those lands, and thereby to resolve the Palestinian "problem." These are racist and disgusting comments that openly support mass-murder and ethnic cleansing by the Israeli government.  These hate-filled comments not only perpetuate misunderstanding hatred of the Islamic religion, but also seek to de-legitimize the lives and history of the Palestinian people both Christian and Muslim, making it easier to justify their expulsion from their ancestral homes and lands. 

 Please reference our website http://www.studentorg.vcu.edu/fpn for more information on our organization.

Free Palestine Now!
fpn@vcu.edu